Days of Hate Act Two

Days of Hate #6-12

by Aleš Kot, Danijel Žeželj (Contributor), Jordie Bellaire (Contributor)

Endgame.

Collects DAYS OF HATE #7-12.

Genres: Comics, Graphic Novels, Fiction, Dystopia, LGBT, Graphic Novels Comics, Queer

168 pages, Paperback

First published February 20, 2019

About the author

Aleš Kot is a post-Chernobyl, pre-revolution, Czech-born, California-based writer/producer who started in graphic novels and now makes films, television, and an occasional novella.

A. believe in art and community.
A. doesn't believe in borders nor cops.
A. believes in love, which they know is a very Libra answer. And what about it?

Reviews

[James DeSantis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a series I don't think I really ever want to re-read but I will probably recommend it to anyone looking for a political thriller...or just a well written political story in general. Since so many are hamfisted it's nice to see something that feels effortless while also giving us characters to love/hate here.

The story continues where the last one left off. This one really focuses on the past relationships and why people keep betraying others. The biggest characters are back but this time it's all slowly inching towards something horrible. You can feel the pressure building with each panel as the plans begin to form one piece at a time. By the end you get a hopeless message but a message you can somehow hold on to none the less.

Good: Each and every panel has meaning in a way. Sometimes to show life, sometimes to show devastation, and sometimes just to give us a glimpse of someone's mindset before it drifting away from us. I love how there's no clear cut bad guy, and even the worst characters (and there's some terrible characters) have something or someone you care about for them. The ending strikes hard and gives you maybe a empty feeling about civilization? But sometimes we need that reminder to push for some type of hope.

Bad: The book is such a quick read it ended before I knew it (read it less than 20 minutes.) I also think some of the panels reuse too many times instead of creating new ones to show new emotion. Also, not a happy story (DUH!)

Sometimes stories are meant to bring you down, mostly to show you things, or maybe to remind you that YOUR life is not as bad as you think. I really enjoyed this story, and the political message it had, as well as the dark take on each character and their life. I'd read another one easy (I think this is the end though) For it I'd give a easy 4 out of 5.

[A Fan of Comics · Rating 4 out of 5]

Brutal ending.

This story was pretty great. Not the ending I was expecting, but it was a solid read. There are a few questions I have and it does feel like they could do a volume 3 but I doubt it. The art was probably the best part, and I wouldnt mind reading something else in its style.
If you can, try to read both together. Honestly think they should have done just one massive oversized hardcover for this series (and hope they still do).

[Tanja L · Rating 4 out of 5]

This had such a great build up, the tension was great and then it sort of fizzled out, leaving you with the feeling that whatever happened, it ultimately didn't really matter. I do appreciate the story up until the end.

[Craig · Rating 2 out of 5]

A story with a promising start peters out into not much of anything. The artwork really got to be a bit oppressive by the end--so heavy and brutal, everyone with a stray hair or two out of place. More pretentious writing from Kot. A disappointment.

[Zedsdead · Rating 5 out of 5]

Huian and Amanda conspire remotely to do...something vague and violent that will change the world, something to fight back. Huian has an ongoing affair with authoritarian fed Peter Freeman in a hopeless attempt to gain intel. Amanda and Arvid bide their time in a hotel, worrying about their loved ones.

Days of Hate is a worthy read as a meditation on how the world got where it is and what it might evolve into next. But as a work of intrigue and suspense, it's non-traditional. Counterintuitive. I was drawn in by the competing ideologies or I'd have found it unsatisfying.

----------------------------------------

"When will you people finally accept we won? Democrats played checkers. We played chess. This was forty years in the making. Did you think we achieved all this by chance? We won because we are the best this country has."
...
"A year after his (Milgram's) experiment, researchers at Northwestern University found that, unlike your average human, rhesus monkeys would starve themselves rather than pull a chain that administers an electric shock to a companion."
...
"I think there's just one war, and it hasn't stopped since we began killing each other, two hundred thousand years ago or so. I don't see it stopping anytime soon. People think it's days, years, maybe decades sometimes, and then we get...peace. But we have never been peaceful. Just more or less murderous than before, and then it breaks again, and we end up right here. So...I don't think we're nearly as good at building homes as we are at murder."

And in a lone moment of (probably unrealistic) optimism:

"You're done. You and this whole idea of a...pure America. It's never been real. You've never even existed...and the reality of the situation is finally catching up with you. You've exhausted everyone, you and your president and your alt-right Nazi creeps and your fucking third-to-a-half of this country that just went along with you because it was the more comfortable decision to make. You're breathing but you're already dead...You and your piece of shit friends were always doomed to failure. Everyone's catching up to it now. Even the people who wanted you to win, because they're seeing you're not winning anymore."

----------------------------------------
Plot points:
--Huian has an affair with Freeman. She's ostensibly letting herself be used as bait to catch her ex-wife. Secretly she's trying to extract information, while she conspires with Amanda towards some unknown goal.
--Freeman has Huian's parents and Arvid's wife and son detained and fast-tracked for extralegal deportation. He hopes to pressure the conspirators into making a mistake.
--Huian attempts to blackmail Freeman with video of their affair, but he doesn't care.
--Unwilling to let Amanda die in a suicidal blaze of glory, Huian sneaks a bomb into Freeman's briefcase. Remorseful, she calls him to warn him not to set it up, but he silences her call. His wife and son are killed in the blast. Freeman is unharmed.
--Freeman visits Huian in prison, intending to rape and kill her. After a conversation, he shoots himself in the head instead.
--Arvid finds his son hiding out with a friend. He leaves the boy there so he can hunt for his wife.
--Amanda is alone somewhere wracked with grief. Her fate is unclear.

[47Time · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boy, that sure was a depressive progression to the story. And the ending is even worse. This story shows how important interpersonal relationships are and how they must be put ahead of a job or a personal quest. By putting the job first, you risk losing the loved one, even when you want nothing else but to be with that person. The story was never about terrorists, but about people and how far they willing to go for their beliefs, though it might lead to ruining their lives in the end.

Huian and Peter become intimate, though he has a family of his own. She is secretly looking through his files, but the security he uses makes it difficult to pass anything along to Amanda. Peter decides to apply pressure on Huian's parents and Arvid's family as well. They are a step away from being deported. Huian builds an explosive device in Peter's suitcase. It kills his family instead. He wants to kill the now imprisoned Huian for it, but the hopelessness of his life and of his mission push him to kill himself.

Arvid wanted to leave the life behind for a while now to be with his family. He has a chance to do just that with his son who hid away before the government came. Pretty much every other character loses something in the end. Amanda heads toward her last mission by herself. She and Huian will likely never see each other again.

[Ashkin Ayub · Rating 3 out of 5]

the second book also falls in love with all its monologue, catchphrases, philosophic dialogs, and other serious notions in consciousness. of the worst kind, it looks like a graphic novel by your grad class leader's terrifying worldview whose response to every inquiry started with words 'well, really...'

there was hardly any drama, tension or mystery, or how little is now under pretense and bluster concealed or destroyed by the book's overall monotonous and contemptuous tone. unless anything truly would be at risk and nothing will change, as the narrative seems to imply, would it really matter if anything has happened in the story?

[Devon Munn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Decent series with perfect art for this type of story

[Jesús · Rating 2 out of 5]

Like many books before it, Days of Hate runs aground on the Shoals of Unfulfilled Promise. Sure, what was good in the first volume is still good in the second, but what had been minor irritations are now major distractions.

This second volume falls too much in love with its own long-winded and self-indulgent monologues, witticisms, Socratic-style dialogues, and other self-consciously “deep” thoughts. In its worst moments, it reads like a comic written by the awful philosophy major in the front row of your undergrad history class whose answer to every question began with the phrase “Well, actually...”

There’s almost no action, suspense, or intrigue, and what little there is has been buried beneath pretense and bluster or spoiled by the overall bleak and cynical tone of the book. If, as the book seems to suggest, nothing’s really at stake and nothing will ever change, would it even matter if anything finally *did* happen in the book?

[Damian Mxyzptlk · Rating 3 out of 5]

The fragmentary story is almost meditative in its sparseness, and quite elementary, really. But the art - even though I really like the expressionist style - is very confusing, as the thick lines and subdued color palette make all characters look the same. It's really unprecedented that I would look at a conversation between a white male and an Asian female and I couldn't tell them apart in close ups, or wonder whether a character is appearing for the first time, or is one of the main characters in a new situation. This is a huge problem for this book, and it's a matter of a questionable stylistic choice. That being said, it's still enjoyable read. I wish both acts were released in a single volume, since it is such a quick read.

[Ushnav Shroff · Rating 4 out of 5]

The second volume of Days of Hate was so much more easier to follow than the first one, and that made all the difference in its readability. Chapter 10 - 'Army of Shadows' was perhaps the most happening of them all. The plot really upped its ante in that one, and that way, reading the second act of this graphic novel series felt like a television series.

A line that stood out for me: '(...) I don't think we're nearly as good at building homes as we are at murder.' This sentence sums up the story behind the revolutions taking place within both the graphic novel as well as real life.

[Red🏳️‍⚧️ · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good. Criminally good. Phenomenal really. Aleš Kot is one of the best voices in comics, now or ever. A beautiful, brutalist, mind-bending, heart-crushing work of topical spy-fi. This is one of the greatest stories about America, today and overall. I would suggest reading at least the review of issue #12 on Black Nerd Problems before you get to that issue in this volume. Yes it has spoilers but it will prepare for exactly how fucking hard the last issue drops you on your ass. And what’s more American than that?

Seriously, this is a masterpiece. Hard to read - painful to read - but hard to let go of and hard to forget about and hard to deny.

[Dragan Nanic · Rating 2 out of 5]

In the second part the story transforms into cat-and-mouse chase, gaining on drama and losing on action, pace and excitement. It zoomes in on two characters, back stories and the world setting are not flashed anymore. That inward journey and subsequent resolution is not presented with enough drama, however, the problem being in transformation of the main antagonist from brutal and formidable force into someone we should care about. For the second time in my recent readings I ran into this plot resolution and again it didn't work for me, for the simple reason that I don't get convincing justification for that transformation.
The art stays on the same level, the details are sparse and the characters sometimes hard to differentiate, which combined with dragging story and lame ending (the last original issue is kind of afterward but again rather too long and too unbelievable) results in two stars only.

[Reading · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5⭐'s
Wuh? Huh? The ending.... not gonna spoil it but I'll dimply say I was tremendously disappointed.

The art is gorgeous. No really, it's my favorite style and was a perfect match for the tone of the story. Zezelji's art is the love child of Maleev & Drucker and the story, until the end, reminded me of Ellis's Global Frequency and Wood's DMZ and that's all super fantastic... except I started getting a bit lost and felt the story was belabored and then, the awful and unsatisfying ending.

Oh well - perhaps you shall enjoy it more.

Bonus - if you read the single shots, at the end of each issue there are some great recommendations for books, music and poetry that pair well with the comic.

[Karl · Rating 3 out of 5]

Zezelj is a top notch artist. He did a couple issues of DMZ (Brian Wood). The problem here is the writing. Actually, having referenced Wood, I think someone like him would have been a better fit as writer or Jason Aaron or Ed Brubaker. The plot just sort of spun its wheels a bit and was less than satisfying. Also, having read Briggs Land (Brian Wood) it would have been interesting to see into this alluded to guerrilla war against white supremacists from the white supremacist perspective to give the story grit, tension and balance. I couldn’t find that perspective or maybe I slept on that plot line. I wouldn’t be surprised as the writing wasn’t great.

[Pablo Molina Cortés · Rating 3 out of 5]

Segunda parte y final de una historia que pretende dar una mirada más íntima a la vivencia de los conflictos raciales en Estados Unidos. La tensión se mantiene en todo momento y en cada página, mientras vemos cómo los personajes exponen sus motivaciones para hacer lo que están haciendo... o lo que están por hacer.
El guión pareciera estar construido con el propósito de exponer una pregunta: ¿el fin justifica los medios? ¿Cuánto estamos dispuestos a hacer para alcanzar nuestros objetivos?
Valió la pena sacar el tiempo para concluir esta historia, sobre todo por ese aire existencial, nihilista y mentalmente claustrofóbico que evita el título.

[Souhail Khoury · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the continuation of Vol 1 ; review essentially the same (see below) and the ending is quite surprising and good.

Previous review

"An emotional, dark and intimate journey in a 2022 America where so much is going bad. This looks like a dark drama with very diverse characters and motivation. As usual Ales Kot writes some very complex characters with diverse motivations and touches on heavy themes such as sexuality, xenophobia, arms control etc. The art is beautiful and grim and also conveys the characters state of mind. This could work amazingly well on TV. Recommended reading ! "

[Nestor · Rating 3 out of 5]

It took me ages to finish this second part of Days of Hate and a bunch of factors are to blame for that, but mostly because the series didn’t really live up to my expectations. The finale was extremely anticlimactic in a way that I felt was somehow totally at odds with the more explosive nature of Volume One.

The art is beautiful, and there’s still lots to think about – this is, after all, a very realistic window into an alternate future that might just be on the brink of happening tomorrow. But if only that window were bigger, and a little more exciting...

[Paul Allard · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wordy but interesting second volume to this conspiracy comic series

I couldn’t remember much of Volume 1 which made this tough to get through at first but it becomes clearer as you go along. Rebellion against the US government takes various forms and there’s a lot of character development. The artwork doesn’t help to make the plot clearer but it is still an interesting series and not finished yet.

[Mark Sutherland · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yeah, that was indeed a dystopian tragedy. Now we're on the other side of the election it thankfully feels a little more distant but it does a good job of laying out the anxieties that have been playing out over the last 4 years or more. Interestingly it's live that seems to be the key motive for most of the characters, which drives them to hateful actions of one stripe of another. An interesting read.

[Alex Sarll]

Claustrophobic scenes from relationships and a nation in the process of cracking under the pressure of history. This would undoubtedly have hit harder if I hadn't had such a gap since Act One - here, 2022 is a near-future dystopia, instead of the good old days. But setting it during a second Trump term remains horribly plausible bar that final digit, and this is far from the only reason it still works so well as a mood piece.

[Lukas Holmes · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Maybe everything already arrived and we're just here freaking out and killing each other because the planet is heating up and we don't have a way to stop it and it's driving us insane."

Wow. This volume stopped me cold. So many well written lines, so much to think about and take to heart.

Bleak and all I feel is bleak after this.

[Marek · Rating 3 out of 5]

6.7
Thrller political-fiction, który zawodzi na końcu.
Bardzo lubię Alešowy punkt widzenia, jednak w przypadku "Days of Hate" ta dosłowność treści sprawia, że miewam sprzeczne uczucia. Niemniej, w połączeniu z mocno nieprzyswajalną warstwą wizualną, tworzy się ciekawa wizja świata - ale niestety tylko jego jednego wycinka.

[Chad Jordahl · Rating 3 out of 5]

I like the story and the art. I sympathize with Kot's perspective (although I'm far more optimistic). And I like it when writers don't over-explain with their text. But Kot goes too far on this aspect to the point of causing confusion.
The ending felt abrupt... I wonder if they intended to run longer

[Emiliano De Napoli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Incalzante e intricato puzzle che riesce a tenere incollato fino all'ultima pagina. Ales Kot ha centrato il segno. Il messaggio che passa potrebbe essere visto come un inno alla ribellione armata ad un cervello immaturo, quindi assolutamente da leggere con senno. Visivamente e artisticamente Zezelj coi disegni arrabbiati e Bellaire coi colori cupi fanno un capolavoro.

[Michael Kitchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Didn't take me long to get to this after reading Act One. Kot's storytelling is layered and subtly compelling. Definitely a keeper in my library, to read again. Hopefully I don't find it shockingly accurate in 2022 because a better world is possible.

[Skye Kilaen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ohhhhhhh. My heart! Big feelings. So glad I read this series.

[Jack Imeshi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"But revolutions usually begin by terrorism."

-Kathy Acker, 'Empire of the Senseless'

[autumnlove · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5

[Esteban · Rating 4 out of 5]

There are no happy endings. The world continues to be interesting and the art is still amazing.